This special evening will feature a set each by two amazing songwriters and performers, Thea Hopkins from Massachusetts and Jessie Lloyd from Australia."Doors" open at 7:30 (EDT), concert starts at 8:00.
Register by clicking on the registration button, and we'll give you the Zoom link.
Cost to register: free; Suggested donation: $20 per listener. (If you feel generous and can afford it, a higher amount will help support the performers.)
ABOUT THE ARTISTS -
A member of Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe of Martha’s Vineyard, performing songwriter Thea Hopkins calls her music “Red Roots Americana.” In addition to Aquinnah Wampanoag, Hopkins ' ancestry includes Nottoway (Iroquois), African American, Irish and Portuguese. She has been described as a “standout writer” by the Washington Post. Thea first came to wide public notice when Peter, Paul & Mary recorded her song "Jesus Is on The Wire" in 2004, and then again in 2010 with the Prague Symphony Orchestra. It is considered one of their later signature songs. Her 2018 album “Love Come Down’, was nominated for a 2019 Indigenous Music Award in the folk category, an international competition. One song from the album, “The Ghost of Emmett Till,” was awarded the grand prize by the Great American Song Contest in March 2021. There were over 1900 entries from forty-three countries. Her program, “In the Roundhouse”, a celebration of traditional and contemporary Indigenous music, debuted in Providence RI in September 2021. In 2023, Thea received an artist award from the Newport Festivals Foundation in support of her upcoming recording project, to be released in January 2024. Festivals and venues where Thea has performed include the Kennedy Center (DC), Woody Guthrie Festival (OK), Moseley Folk Festival (UK), Int'l Festival Of Arts and Ideas (CT), Native Voices Festival (NY), American Folk Art Museum (UK), Bluebird Cafe (TN), Club Passim (MA), Banff Centre For The Arts (CN) and the Bitter End (NY). More about Thea Hopkins
Jessie Lloyd is a Songkeeper. An Australia Aboriginal singer, social historian and cultural practitioner of Indigenous song and founder of her award-winning Mission Songs Project. As a cultural ambassador, Lloyd takes audiences on a profoundly-moving musical journey into the depths and diversity of Australia’s history, culture and identity. Jessie’s work continues the songlines of Aboriginal Australian, a body of traditional songs that carries the 60,000-year history of the world’s oldest living culture. She engages her audiences through intimate storytelling, moving harmonies and historical insights, using her humour and truth to share the voices of her elders, just as they would around a warm campfire or kitchen table.
Hailing from a musical family, Jessie’s father Joe Geia is a pioneer of Aboriginal protest songs and composed the Aboriginal anthem ‘Yil Lull’. Her grandfather Albie Geia was conductor of the Palm Island Brass Band and leader of the historic 1957 Palm Island Strike. Jessie has dedicated her musical career to maintaining the intergenerational song traditions of Indigenous music, using her unique methodology to continue these songlines into modern music and the arts sector. She is also a mother and partner, and is currently based in Brisbane, Australia.More about Jessie Lloyd
